On childhood wounds

A few days ago I read a post describing the pain and humiliation of a gay man who had overheard someone referring to him with a homophobic epithet. I could empathize fully. I’ve felt that same pain and sense of shame in similar circumstances. What interests me, however, is why we, even those of us, men ostensibly quite comfortable with our sexual orientation, react with such hurt and humiliation. When we were still in the closet we thought that once we were out, that gnawing fear of being called a faggot would go away. It didn’t, and it won’t.

Many of us have come to quite solid terms with our homosexuality. We are out to family, friends, and at work. Many of us are in partnerships, some of these partnerships even recognized by the state, and do not in any way hide or disguise our sexual orientation even to total strangers. If, then, we are so comfortable with our homosexuality, why does it hurt so much when someone calls us a fag or a queer?

I can't accept that this vulnerability belies any residual self- hate concerning our homosexuality. Just because you cringe when someone calls you a faggot does not at all necessarily mean that you are in any realized manner uncomfortable with your gay identity.

The fellow writing the post likened his reaction to the pain he suffered when he was taunted with being a faggot or sissy as a child, and he wonders why he feels the same way as a man. I would suggest that the pain we now feel in such circumstances is not just similar to the pain we felt as children; it is, in fact a reawakening of that same pain. The wounds our childhood tormentors left on our defenseless and vulnerable hearts are evidently still there, incurable and permanent.

I would offer as substantiation that other types of insults, unrelated to childhood torments, can produce anger or even shame, but they do not produce the same searing humiliation. You can insult my looks, my intelligence, my ambition, my nationality, my politics, etc, and you will make me uncomfortable, even provoke me, but you will not make me want to go and hide, as you do when you call me a faggot. The only other type of offense that makes me burn with humiliation is anti-Semitism, another theme of childhood nightmares.

I guess that the horrible fact is that there is no way, no matter what we do later in life, that we can heal those deeply planted wounds from childhood. No matter how secure we feel as gay men, we carry those wounds within us; they are ready to open up and bleed at the least provocation.

Each of us copes with these wounds in his own way. I honed my intelligence and wit dagger sharp and at an early age learned how to strike back very effectively against homophobic taunts. The price of this defense, of course, was that I grew up regarding my intellectual faculties as a weapon instead of a source of pleasure and understanding. It took me years of emotional reorientation to begin to set this right. Other guys become painfully shy, avoiding contact wherever possible. Yet others are “in your face,” flaunting their “queerness” before anyone can attack them for it. I wonder how much of our lives are formed around protecting ourselves from the pain that prodding these wounds causes.

Recently, I ran a post discussing the limited usefulness of the generally shared gay practice of making lists of illustrious gays. Obviously, such lists are an attempt to cope with these wounds. I, frankly, don’t think they do much good in this regard. They remind me of my father’s attempts at consoling me after anti-Semitic incidents by reminding me that Freud, Einstein, and Marx (We were proudly pink-o) were Jews. It didn’t do a damn bit of good. There isn’t any effective balm; we can only try to protect future generations.

There should be some way to protect potentially gay children from this spiritual mutilation. What such childhood taunts do to people who develop gay and the stubborn permanence of the wounds they leave should be part of all teacher education programs, and gay organizations should be insistent on this point.

That the immediate perpetrators of this damage are other children is, in fact, irrelevant. Children are no longer permitted to taunt other children because of their race or religion. Any school that would allow this would soon find itself with legal problems. There is no reason why such a standard of behavior should not be applied to sexually related taunts.

In addition, it was not always the other children who inflicted these wounds. Frequently, it was the teachers themselves who encouraged these taunts, either directly, through derogatory comments they themselves made, or indirectly by showing indifference to the sadism and bullying of some of the children in their charge. The possibilities of taking legal, or at least professional disciplinary action against such teachers should be investigated.

In recent years we have developed, especially in the US but now increasingly in Europe, a heightened consciousness of psychological dangers to children. You can’t pat the head of a neighbor’s child without arousing fears of pedophilia. Nevertheless, we as a society still permit and even condone merciless, sadistic taunting of potentially gay children. The agents themselves may be children, but it is most frequently adults who form the context that not only allows but also encourages this behavior.